On The Drums, Mr. Bun E Carlos

Quick question:
Can you imagine Cheap Trick without Bun E Carlos?
Of course you can’t. He is an intricate part of the band, not only in terms of the way be plays, but he is ingrained into the vision of the band.
Bun E Carlos is like Kramer in that episode of Seinfeld where he appears in court as a favor for Newman, voicing his (fake) dreams of wanting to be a banker. Carlos never ended up as a banker. He never blurted out “Yo Yo Ma!” under oath. And he never changed out of his banker clothes before walking on stage with the rest of Cheap Trick.
So how did an announcement that Bun E Carlos would not be a touring member of Cheap Trick slip under the radar and only get a brief explanation on their official website?
That’s sacrilegious!
And suspicious. I saw him on the 101 playing the skins for a band featuring James Iha on guitar, one of the Hanson kids on guitar vocals, and some other dude who I later learned is part of Fountains of Wayne. The band is called Tinted Windows, and they obviously toured the country, eliminating the idea that Carlos simply didn’t want to tour any more.
Maybe he’s sick?
Well, their website suggests that everyone in the band is “healthy.”
Cheap Trick got away with replacing the dreamy Tom Petersson on bass with John Brandt back in the early 80’s. That was a little tricky, as Petersson not only had the looks; he had those wild-ass 8 and 12 string bass guitars that sounded weird.
Brandt may have been passable, but I’m still glad that I saw the band when Petersson was still with ‘em (he’s since rejoined).
But Bun E?
You almost have to end the band when he calls it a day. Or change the name.
On In Color, you saw the two lookers mounting their motorcycles on the cover. Flip it over, you saw the two nerdy guys mounting Vespa scooters.
You’re not going to get me to believe that some dude with a full set of hair and who’s under the age of 50 is the drummer of Cheap Trick.
No way.
Two strange things about Bun E Carlos:
The first is how he actually looks his age now. When I saw him back in ’81, he was thirty but he looked like he was fifty. Now that he’s approaching 60, he actually looks like he’s in his fifties.
Another thing: he used to smoke like a fiend. The show that I saw had him playing and smoking at the same time. To me, that was more impressive than his playing (more on that later). He had a pair of fans right by his kit which kept him cool and kept the smoke out of his eyes. On later tours, I heard that the fans were replaced with actual working air conditioners. No shit: even when the gig was outdoors, they ran extension cords to fuel the window units.
A drummer friend of mine used to lament how a man as unflashy as Bun E Carlos would warrant any press whatsoever. He didn’t understand that Cheap Trick didn’t need flash-it was already built into those hooks-and that Carlos keeps time like a motherfucker. Could you hear “Voices” or “I Want You To Want Me” or even that piece of shit “The Flame” drummed any other way than how Bun E Carlos played it?
With someone so vital an element to a band’s image, the news of this should have been bigger story than it seems to be.
In other news according to a recent Billboard article (one that mentions nothing about the Carlos news), Cheap Trick is contemplating doing Dream Police in its entirety in a live setting (yay!), is about ready to release that much booted Steve Albini recording of In Color (which is way better than the original version, IMO), and that Bun E. Carlos has the biggest cock in the band.
Ok, that last part was made up.

The Boys From Illinois

Lately, for whatever reason, I’ve been spinning a lot of Cheap Trick records. After a few more purchases, I’ll be content with having enough C.T. titles in the collection (maybe In Color, definitely Dream Police and perhaps One On One). That is, unless Cheap Trick throws down another required listening effort, which is quite possible because they’re still going at it and they seem to be undergoing a creative resurgence, if I’m judging their latest Rockford correctly; it’s as good as they’ve done in nearly twenty years and, unlike the solid (yet horribly overproduced and dated One On One), it bypasses any attempt at “updating” their sound and relinquishes modernism for focusing on what made ‘em Rockford, Illinois finest rock and roll export.
What seems to be getting continual listens is Cheap Trick’s debut album, the remastered version with bonus tracks (including a rough demo of “I Want You To Want Me” that is totally better than the one on In Color). I’ve tried to imagine what the hell people thought of this album at the time it was released; quirky, hooky, and rough in the right places, it was unlike anything else in 1977, yet today its influence is obvious.
With songs about pedophiles, mass murderers, suicide, and greed, it’s understandable why Cheap Trick struggled a hair above obscurity while their wonderful power chords and Beatles-esque sense of melody made it easy to understand why a major label like Epic continued to foster the band along, hoping that the audience would eventually catch on.
They did, of course, with the absolutely essential Live At Budokan. The reality is that Budokan merely captures the environment that was the band’s bread and butter until record buyers had a chance to catch up: their live show. And while, with the exception of the debut, their recorded studio output found the band exploring various directions (oftentimes with frustrating results), Live At Budokan documents a band quite confident and agile on stage.
What it doesn’t do (and this doesn’t distract from how awesome that album is) is capture the characters that made up the band, during a time in rock in which lasting impressions were sometimes critical to a band’s success.
That was best experienced by seeing Cheap Trick live.



During the tour for All Shook Up, the band made their way to Memorial Auditorium, a small arena nestled on the banks of the Mississippi River in Burlington, Iowa. The venue is a stopping point for bands reaching the end of their apex, and in some cases, bands that are on the verge of stardom (Guns ‘N Roses and Metallica played there just before their careers took off).
As evidenced by Mike Damone’s struggles to unload C.T. tickets to a young customer in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, the band was experiencing smaller than normal venues and less than expected record sales. Yet these Midwestern favorites continued to be a draw in Southeast Iowa and I got a friend excited about taking the 45 minute long trek to see his first concert.
Our seats were in the first ten rows, which probably created a strong memory for my friend. After all, you could do worse, much worse actually, than having Cheap Trick as your first live experience.
The other thing that probably created a strong memory was the selection of great material they played for this tour. Road tested to the point where they could probably play the entire set in their sleep, the band showed no evidence of disappointment that they were playing a date in a town that’s highest population figure was probably a generous 45,000 residents.
Rick Nielsen provided the crowd with the obligatory in-between song stage banter and in-song guitar pick tossing, one of which ended up on the floor directly in front of my friend’s seat. It’s a souvenir that I hope he still has to this day.
Nielsen used his checkerboard Hamer Explorer guitar throughout most of the performance, until he brought out the Hamer 5 neck out for a money shot.
Bun E. Carlos stayed in back most of the night, smoking and drumming, until something drew his attention from the drum riser.
“You….look…great!” Nielsen said.
“We…feel….great!” he continued.
Then, someone from the crowd through a joint on stage, which landed near Rick. Carlos, having noticed this offering, got up from his kit and walked towards the front of the stage by Rick. Nielsen noticed and then offered “Bun E….feels….great!”
Carlos picked up the joint and drew a lighter from his pocket. He lit the joint and took a large hit, much to the delight of the crowd.
“Bun E……feels….greater!”
He took another hit, and holding the smoke in his lungs, he grabbed the microphone from Rick and gave the crowd his opinion of the gift.
“Good shit.” He said, before handing the joint to someone in the front row and returning back to the drum kit.
For a fifteen year old kid, it was one of the most awesome things I had ever seen and it forever changed my opinion of Bun E. Carlos.
But time, weed, and the introduction of outside songwriters faded the image of this concert from my memory, and Cheap Trick became “street fair” act. I’m fairly certain that the band really couldn’t care less about what me, or anybody else thought about their tour schedule. They were doing what they set out to do all along: make a living playing original rock and roll music.
So with each tour, they play the obligatory hits package and incorporate a few new tracks to promote their latest effort. The thing is, having seen the band play “Surrender,” “I Want You To Want Me,” and other catalog favorites countless times, they don’t seem to be any less enthused about performing them today than when they were new.
So while newer bands underscore what they feel they’re “entitled” to, Cheap Trick understands they the only entitlement they have is showing up to the 150-200 shows they book each year. The stage has always been their strong point, and we’re privileged that they’re still at it, no matter what stage they decide to walk on.